A place to call Home
by RosemaryW
Summary: Pearl is struggling to adjust to life after death. One-shot


Death was supposed to be the end: The full stop at the end of the book, or at least at the end of the chapter. Death was not supposed to be watching the world carry on without you, powerless to interact with anything or anyone. Yet here she was, dead three months and stuck staring out of her bedroom window at the world passing beneath her.

At first she tries to interact with her family. Tries so desperately that it almost drives her mad. She assumes ghosts can go mad. There doesn't seem to be a manual for these types of situations.

* * *

The reality of it all doesn't really hit her until they bring her coffin into the front room before the funeral. Her mother leans over her body and cries and screams. She's so loud that Pearl had thinks the windows will shatter. Her mother has always been one for dramatic gestures.

She doesn't want to see the body at first. She waits until her family has gone through to the kitchen to have a proper look. She has realised by now that they can't see her, but it still doesn't seem right to view your own corpse in a room full of people.

The first thing she feels is annoyance. She had hoped her mother would have chosen to bury her in her favorite dress, a full skirted beauty that reminded her of the dresses by fancy French designers in the magazines that the glamorous ladies in the tea rooms she worked at used to read. Her mother had never approved of her dresses. Still in a wartime frame of mind, she thought that they were vulgar, 'a waste of so much precious fabric for just one skirt'. The dress she has chosen for Pearl to wear for eternity is a simple forest green itchy woolen dress that she had passed down to Pearl and which remained in the back of her wardrobe never to be worn during her life.

She kneels down on the floor beside her coffin and runs her fingers across her face. It's cold and waxy. She withdraws her quickly and wishes she was somewhere else. She opens her eyes and she's curled up on the floor of her bedroom.

She can hear a soft weeping from across the hallway and finds her sister Ruby staring vacantly into the mirror on their mother's dressing table. In her hand is a lipstick that Pearl had bought her for her birthday. She's resolutely applying it to her lips even though her hand is trembling, smudging it all around her mouth. Pearl puts her hand out to steady her, but of course it goes right through.

She tries to avoid being in the house with her family after that. It hurts too much. She spends her days wondering the streets of Southend. After a while she discovers that she can pick things up and begins to entertain herself by making people's belongings float before their eyes or just by hiding them when they aren't looking. She also spends what is probably an unhealthy amount of time, playing tricks on James Cooper, who she had pretty much been in love with since she was eighteen and who she had caught kissing her best friend under the pier when they were all supposed to be celebrating her 21st birthday.

* * *

It's a stormy September evening when she first meets him. She's lost herself in the rolling waves and doesn't even notice that someone is beside her until he speaks.

'You must be freezing, here, please have my coat.' His voice is soft, an accent she's never heard before. She doesn't take her eyes off the sea. It doesn't occur to Pearl that the man is addressing her.

'Miss, can you hear me?' she feels his hand softly touch her shoulder. Actually feels it! The first human contact she's had since _it_ happened.

'You can see me?' she's not sure if she's laughing or crying. She turns to look at him. She's never seen someone with skin as dark as his outside of the films. She doubts her mother would approve of her talking to 'his sort', but if you can't disobey your mother when you're dead, then when can you?'

'Of course I can see you.' He sounds vaguely confused

The young man is called Leo and it turns out he's a werewolf. Just when she thought that the world couldn't get any more absurd.

After that day, they meet on the bench every evening after he finishes work. Suddenly the long expanse of the afterlife that lies before her seems a little more bearable. He tells her stories. His home country sounds beautiful and she tries to lose herself in the imagery he creates.

Some days he doesn't say much, there's a pain behind his eyes and his shoulders droop like they're carrying the weight of the world. He's been having some difficulties with his housemate he says. Pearl waits for him to elaborate, but he never does

After a few weeks the two of them have become firm friends.

After a few months have passed he invites her around for dinner one evening and suddenly she understands why it has taken him so long. It turns out that Leo has left out a few important details about his housemate. Leo assures her that the vampire is safe, but then why are all the windows boarded up?

The vampire says very little. He barely acknowledges her when Leo shows her in. Occasionally she'll glance over at him, sometimes she meets his eyes and it's like he is devouring her with them. She makes her excuses and leaves as soon as she can.

The next time she meets Leo at the bench she plucks up the courage to ask him about Hal.

'I made him a promise' Leo says simply, 'I said I would help him'

'Why?' she can't keep the incredulity out of her voice.

He shrugs, like having a 500 year old vampire suffering with blood withdrawals living under his roof is nothing, 'it seemed like the right thing to do.'

A year after her death her family sell their home. She waves them goodbye and watches as they pile themselves into her father's car and drive away to their new life, one that doesn't have painful reminders in every room. Without them it's just a house, not her home. There's nothing to keep her here anymore and she begins to feel like she's fading.

Leo is brimming with excitement when she next sees him. He's put down the deposit on his own barber shop. She smiles, happy for him. But her eyes are brimming with tears, she quickly wipes them away, not wanting to take away from his happiness.

She goes round to the barber shop one evening. A new family has moved into her family's old house and everything feels wrong, like whatever is tying her to the world is fraying and about to snap. To her dismay it's Hal that opens the door. In her distress she had completely forgotten that tonight was the full moon.

The vampire hesitates before inviting her in. They talk about all the things that don't matter; the weather, the elections. Safe topics. Hal isn't much of a conversationalist and if she's honest, it's her doing all of the talking. He seems different somehow to that time they had dinner, more relaxed and the boards are gone from the windows. He doesn't seem so frightening now.

She wants to ask how he and Leo met. It's the one thing that Leo doesn't like to talk about. Last time she asked him about it he wouldn't look at her and she was sure his eyes were filled with tears. She didn't mention it again after that, she hates to see him sad.

The question remains unasked because out of nowhere she collapses into tears. Hal looks completely lost at the sudden breakdown and awkwardly pats her shoulder wishing to god there was not a hormonal ghost in his living room. He's never understood women.

When Pearl finally regains her composure she sees the vampire staring at her, he looks rather puzzled. The day's events tumble out of her mouth, disorganised and incoherent. '…it's like I'm drifting away into nothing…' she finally finishes and the tears start again.

'You need a tether, familiars.' He says steadily, 'If there's nothing to hold you to this world, you'll just drift away, like vapor.'

For possibly the first time in her life (and death), Pearl is utterly lost for words.

'I'm sorry', Hal says sheepishly, 'that probably isn't what you wanted to hear, is it?'

Her mother always told her to 'keep calm and carry on'. Since she's died it's a motto that she's lived by. The thought of just drifting away, ceasing to exist absolutely terrifies her, _but at least it would be an end_ she tells herself, _you need to be brave_. She brushes down her dress and wipes away her tears, one of the perks of being a ghost is that her makeup doesn't run.

She glances around the living room and notices that there is no character to the décor, everything in the flat is purely there for functionality. 'You need a feminine touch round here.' She tells him.

Hal looks utterly terrified at the suggestion.

She goes the stove and heats the kettle, 'I think a cup of tea is in order don't you?'

* * *

Leo is there waiting for her when she heads to their bench the next day. He looks tired, but that's understandable she thinks. Turning into a wolf can't be the most restful way to spend an evening.

'I think you should come and live with us!' he blurts out before she's even sat down. 'Hal told me that you came round last night. He told me about your situation, we can be your tethers, me and Hal.' A huge infectious smile has spread across his face.

She says yes without hesitation.

* * *

She slips into life above the shop like it's a warm dressing gown. It's not all roses, Leo isn't exactly what you would call tidy and Hal is the most high maintenance person she's ever met. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon and she's decided that she wants to cook roast chicken. She potters around the kitchen humming to herself as she hunts for the pots and pans she needs but Hal has everything organised in a complicated system that she's never managed to work out. Eventually she gives up looking and decides to make her boys tea instead.

She can hear them arguing in the next room right now, Hal wants to listen to the world service but Leo is insistent on playing his new Jazz record. There's an underlying tension that bubbles between the two of them which sometimes rises to the surface and ends up with one of them exploding with the fury of Mount Vesuvius. This thankfully isn't one of those days and when she appears in the living room with a tray of tea and biscuits they are both happily listening to Leo's jazz.

She puts the tray down, takes a seat and rests back into her chair. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees Leo resting his boot clad feet on the arm of the sofa, she glares at him. Hal has noticed too and is suddenly tense like a lion ready to spring. Leo remains oblivious, eyes closed, humming along to the music

It's not perfect, but then family never is.


End file.
